1962 Wolseley 6/99

Hi I'm new here. I have been painting my car for the last month or so, and thought I'd post it up. I'm in NZ so the paints I used might be helpful for others in this part of the world where you can't get hold of the american paints.

My 1962 Wolseley is in fine condition, except for the old chipped and faded paint job, so I decided to paint it with a roller after reading about the technique on other forums.

Since I live in a small town finding the stuff I'm after is always a bit of a hit & miss affair. I found some paint that looked like it was the right stuff at an engineering shop of all places, and it was about half the price of Killrust brand paint. It's Altex brand, and it is an isotal enamel. I've no idea what isotal is, and the forums where i learned about painting a car with a roller all recommended an acrylic enamel, but the paint is designed to go on to bare metal and is oil based, which was what I was after. I also bought 5 litres of "Penetrol" which allegedly "makes paint stick to anything" and is also a rust inhibitor, which I tested, and yes, it is. Anyway, the engineering shop was one of those places where I got the feeling if the stuff doesn't work they won't sell it and the old school graphic design on the tin tells me they sell their products based on the quality of the what's in the tin, not on the fancy graphics ON the tin.

Anyhoo, I digress, back to the task at hand. I opened the tin of Altex and boy, is this stuff thick! Like treacle, so I mixed it for a while, then poured some into a Jar. To this I added about 50% Penetrol and stirred again. Then I added a bit of turps for a bit more thinning, as I wanted the consistency like milk, slightly thicker than water. Then i poured some into a small tray and got out the 100mm foam roller I bought. This roller is the high density foam, designed to paint onto smooth surfaces. I squeezed paint into the roller, and then squeezed most out again, and then started on the boot lid. I found the best way was nice slow smooth strokes, with not too much paint on the roller, so you have to squeeze down to get the paint out. As I moved along the boot, I looked back and noticed the paint was doing the leveling thing I had been told about, and it looked smooooth.

There were some small bubbles, but a roll over the area without pressing down on the roller (just gravity) smoothed them out. I had to go slow though, too fast and it made bubbles. So I finished the boot lid and rolled the edges, then thought I might as well do the wings, I wasn't going to cause it was raining outside, and the car doesn't really fit into the garage, but the rain had stopped so I kept on rollin'. Of course as soon as I had finished the two rear wings the rain started, running down the rain channels on the side of the roof and onto my new paint...
Oh well, thats what you get for painting in the rain...

I'm going to let it dry, then do another coat, then it's sanding time, using 600 or 800.

Costs so far:
Penetrol $99
Altex isotal enamel white $30
Foam rollers $30
Foam brushes $6
Turps $25

I'm sure you can make some savings if you live near a Bunnings, or other large hardware type store.

It used hardly any paint, looks like another one of Penetrol's claims is true, I doubt I will need more than 2 litres for the whole top half of the car.














Finished the white section so far. I'm waiting for my green paint to arrive for the lower half. British racing green!

Wow....looks very good so far!
Keep us posted!

Welcome to the forum. Interesting car. It does look good so far. Already has a nice gloss and I don't see much orange peel at all. How many coats is that? It's always nice to hear how other people Have done things and yes, we love pictures. Waiting for the green .
Mike

I think that pic was 6 coats, but now i've put 11 on the boot (trunk) and it still looks pretty much the same. There is a bit of orange peel, not too bad, and nothing a light sand wont fix.
Cheers!

It looks good with 6. With 11 you have a good cushion for colorsanding and should not have to worry about going through. Good deal on the orange peel.
Mike

Phase 2 of my painting project now underway! Finally got the lower half sanded and prepped, and my green paint arrived today as well. The green is a bit lighter than I wanted, but i'm hoping it will darken up a bit more with more coats. It's close enough anyway, and certainly should look '60s' when I'm finished.


Here you can see the finished white. If you look closely you can see some orange peeling, but this will be sanded out and then polished. 11 coats on this part.


All prepped and ready for some green!


Coat no.1 of green. The white primer shines through! It will all be covered by the 4th or 5th coat though.

Wow! That looks very nice considering you haven't done any sanding. Or have you?

My 1982 Mercury Cougar Station Wagon comes apart this weekend for paint and interior refurbishment.

tbirdsps wrote:Wow! That looks very nice considering you haven't done any sanding. Or have you?

Just a little sanding between coats. Haven't started sanding down the top coat yet, I want to do the green half, then can sand the car all in one go, and then cut n polish.

The white part looks about finished. It'll be fantastic when you have done all the sanding and polishing.

Green coat no. 2

Looking really good, the green is darkening up nicely.

The white looks incredible and extremely smooth. Hope everything works out for you. I'll definitely check in on this one. I'm interested in seeing the finished product... Your car is really cools.

Are you free-handing that two-tone or are you taping off the white and just removing it for sanding/pics?

Lil Neon wrote:The white looks incredible and extremely smooth. Hope everything works out for you. I'll definitely check in on this one. I'm interested in seeing the finished product... Your car is really cools.

Are you free-handing that two-tone or are you taping off the white and just removing it for sanding/pics?

lol thanks! There actually is tape in the pic, you just have to look closer! Appearance is not crucial as the line will be covered by a chrome trim strip.

Be carefull with the tape and dont leave it on to long. Depending on the kind it can be a real problem to get it off, especially from new paint. Regular cheep masking tape is the worst (should come off in 24 hours). Some of the other stuff ( green and blue) are better but I still advise a week at the most even with them.
Mike

Green coat no. 3



Green coat no. 4



Starting to get some nice even coverage after coat 4. Still a little bit of white undercoat shining through.

Flatting back after coat no. 4 and then coat number 5.

Getting some nice gloss, small amount of orange peel.

You can see the Niva in the reflection. Can't wait to see a few more coats along with the final compound and polish. Going to look fantastic

That orange peel looks like some brand new cars I've seen around here lately.

I'm amazed at the shine prior to sanding. I'm getting more motivated all the time.

I'm starting to think I might not do the final sand/polish just yet. See how I like it as it is (when finished) as I can always do a sand/polish later down the track. I'm just loving the gloss so much, and it makes it easy to clean!

Why not try doing one of the green panels to see how it works out. Just me, but I do think it will look just amazing when it is all compounded and polished out.
If it proves to be to much, you can just repaint the green panel, no harm done.

I should tell the truth. I hate sanding. I also need to have the car back on the road by the end of June. I've already done a small white panel to see what the results looked like. It's smoother but no where near as shiny.

Coat no. 6, see if you can spot the stuck sandfly! There were heaps out there today, there must be about 7 attached to the front wing. For some reason they would all go directly to the freshly painted section of car and roll around in my nice smooth paint before becoming stuck...

Its funny when you see critters stuck in your paint. Always makes you think, dang he is really in there, but truth be told they sand right out LoL. Looking sharp! I like the two tone effect you have going on there.

I'm amazed that this rolling of paint doesn't seem to be much more popular yet. Can you imagine those bugs sticking to your freshly sprayed $400 per gallon urethane! You'd be mad with anger. With the rolled on it's..oh well it'll sand off just fine.

What have you done with the door jams? The rest of the car looks just fantastic.

I really like your two tone paint job. Now I'm toying with the idea of doing the same on my Volvo 164. Notice that the front end styling looks similar to the Wolseley. I think Volvo was inspired by the Pininfarina design. I've been playing with two tone scheme on photoshop with a 164 to see how it might look. I'm going to post a thread in the projects section when I get started.